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Is the Current Trend of Income Inequality Sustainable?

Sungmun Choi
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Sungmun Choi: Department of Economics, Konkuk University, Seoul 05029, Korea

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 19, 1-16

Abstract: Rising income inequality has become a major concern for policymakers and academic researchers. Very high levels of income inequality may result in serious social, political, and economic problems. In this paper, I analyze the trend of Gini index, which is the most commonly used measure for income inequality, to see if the current trend is sustainable in the long run for OECD and major non-OECD countries. Specifically, I use autoregressive time series models to test the sustainability of income inequality. I first analyze the Gini index to see if the time series is stationary and has a steady-state value below 1. If the series has a unit root, I take the first difference and check if the first difference is stationary and has a 0 or negative steady-state value. Results show that while many countries show signs of sustainability, there are a few countries that do not.

Keywords: income inequality; Gini index; sustainable inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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